A brooding, coiled machination curled amidst his internal, infernal reverie, positioned villainous ramparts upon the winding tortures of his entropy and anarchy, sculpted designs of conquerors and kings. With the invasion over, and his rapier left unstained, the bitter condemnation flooding over his skull was not a welcome one; a cutlass could only live without blood on its edges for so long. The Reaper narrowed his gaze, studied, examined, and scrutinized with decadent fervor, polishing over the borders, the cliff tops, the glaciers of the mighty sovereign, pondering over what would become of them now. How else could they proclaim their supremacy? How else could they daunt the masses? How else could they spread fear through the precious hearts of the world, swing their sinister cores into the plights of the realms? The wretched, horrible, abominable monster pondered and wondered, before he was called to the open gates, leaving the wretched, Machiavellian planning undone, pending nuptials for the future.

He moved and maneuvered as terrible, decadent stone, varnished his snow-covered sovereign with an arctic, Siberian prowess; too cold, too malevolent, too discarded for the rest of the earth, made to serve his home as permanent winter, unfeeling and nonchalant. His strides ate away at the chiseled powder and the vestiges of Frostfall, and like the season itself, he wrapped himself in a corporeal cocoon of decomposition, disorder, and condemnation. The monster’s curiosity had been piqued, however, and his strides were not driven by pure malice or overwhelming hatred; Arah’s call had been signature in nature, bringing in another stranger from the Threshold, from the wrought-iron fencing of respite and renewal. They’d had many a disappointment ring from the fringes of that perilous opening, but they’d also held successful, ambitious mercenaries; it’d be an intriguing venture to witness which direction the newcomer would choose.

Even for a beast living amongst acrimony and mayhem, he could still present himself before a stranger (without entirely swallowing them whole, without fermenting his deadly opus, his oeuvre of demise), and bestowed a firm nod to Arah, to the unfamiliar femme, at his methodical, Machiavellian approach. The beast had always been a cold, calculating figure, and he took his time examining the shorter, younger femme, the silvery-bay contortions, the adorning deer antlers (a signature of Arah herself, and several others amidst their herd), and the demure stature. Several queries sprouted and spouted through his mind, registering her soft expanse, the dulcet clamors, wondering how she’d survive amidst their wretched sort. Perhaps she was steel beneath silk, strength beneath satin, capable of unfolding legions and leagues of barbarity upon an enemy. Or maybe she’d be amongst the many who couldn’t stand the pernicious heights, the slithering abominations, the abhorrent masks, and would wander off into the mist and abyss. His eyes fell upon one, upon her emergence, he would have put into the latter (gone, parted from them, dreams of something else chiseled in her brow), but he managed to forgo an arch to his brow at her entry, segmenting a bob of his head to both, turning to address the true newcomer to their surroundings. “Welcome to the Basin. I am Deimos. Who are you?” Short, blunt, and straight to the point, enacting on all the failings of discourse and trailing amidst all the wiles of his machinations, blending and building and brandishing maelstroms for the prospective.

Death, you bring death, and destruction to all that you touch.